Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Red Pill Reality Dispelling Blue Pill Delusions: Whole Grains & Fiber

Most people are at least minimally aware of the way in which carbohydrates trigger a spike in the blood sugar shortly after being eaten, which contributes to storing fat tissue and eventually leading to diseases like diabetes and heart disease over time. The big culprits most people are aware of are sugars and refined carbohydrates...white flour, white pasta etc.

But instead of recommending that people simply cut out grain-based starches from their diet, the conventional wisdom says to merely replace those refined grain feed and replace it with whole grain feed. Let's look at what the USDA and their high-carb pyramid says about this:

Why is it important to eat grains, especially whole grains?
Eating grains, especially whole grains, provides health benefits. People who eat whole grains as part of a healthy diet have a reduced risk of some chronic diseases. Grains provide many nutrients that are vital for the health and maintenance of our bodies.

The USDA...the regulatory agency who literally tells the nation what it should be eating, has former Big Agri-Business Corporation Executives appointed to run it...you know the corporations who's entire business is growing, harvesting, processing and selling grains...they would never lie about the nutritional effects of their primary products, now would they?

Of course not! Our US Department of Agriculture wants to ensure that all of the Sheeple are fed a steady diet of whole grain feed....

...but I digress.

The main point here? The conventional wisdom (i.e. cultural indoctrination programming) tells us to eat whole grain to avoid problems with weight gain and heart disease. It turns out that while whole grain foods may not make you as fat as refined and enriched grain foods...they have a whole host of other problems associated with them, problems that may be worse than simply making you overweight.

This problem is mineral absorption....and that whole grain fiber may actually contribute to colon cancer...not prevent it, as most high-fiber processed foodstuffs regularly claim on their labels.

The fiber hypothesis was based on the fact that an increase in dietary fiber moved food through the gut faster. However, all the nutrients in food are absorbed through the gut wall and this takes time. If the food travels through faster, there is less time for its absorption and consequently less is absorbed. Because of this, all fiber, whether it is from fruit, vegetables or cereals, inhibits the absorption of such nutrients as zinc, iron, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, energy, proteins, fats and vitamins A, D, E and K. Now this doesn't matter too much if you eat a good nutrient-dense diet which contains plenty of these nutrients. But there is another problem with cereal fibre (bran): its phytate content.

In 1992 Professor Harold Sandsted, its Editor-in-Chief, noted that:

'"The evidence seems overwhelming that high intakes of fiber sources that are also rich in phytate can have adverse effects on mineral nutrition of humans . . . In view of the data, it appears that some health promoters who suggest that [we] should consume 30-35 g dietary fiber daily either have not done their homework or have simply ignored carefully done research on this topic."

What he was talking about was the phytic acid that cereals, soya and other legumes have in their husks. It is well known that by this mechanism wholegrain cereals decrease the absorption of minerals and that this leads to a variety of deficiency diseases in both developed and undeveloped countries.

The minerals mostly affected by phytic acid are calcium, iron and zinc. For example, subjects absorbed more iron from white bread than from wholemeal bread even though their intakes of iron were 50% higher with the wholemeal bread. And while white bread must have added calcium, the law does not require it of wholemeal bread.

Bran fiber has also been shown to cause fecal losses, and what the medical profession calls 'negative balances', of calcium, iron, zinc, phosphorus, nitrogen, fats, fatty acids and sterols. A negative balance is where more is lost from the body than is absorbed. What this means is that bran causesa loss of these nutrients from your body.

So while refined grains may cause you to store fat and promote diabetes, whole grain carbohydrates may actually cause you to lose weight...but also contribute to severe nutritional deficiencies over time.

The majority of medical doctors in the United States practice medicine “by the book.” This means a strict adherence to established clinical guidelines and standards of care in order to insulate themselves from malpractice lawsuits. Unfortunately for patients, doctors are taught to recommend fiber not because it is good for them, but because it benefits those who wrote “the book.”

Ahhhh, this is precisely why Doctor's give out a whole host of just plain wrong advice when it comes to diet and nutrition.

In essence, the recommendation to use fiber for constipation is a widespread cover up of the side-effects of antibiotics, dental amalgams, and most other prescription drugs. Medical doctors themselves are aren’t involved in this unintentional cover up, and they are just as much victims as anyone who follows this advice, because doctors also consume fiber themselves, and insist their families do the same.

Pharmaceutical companies in the United States control almost all aspects of medical education, either directly, by publishing references, textbooks, and curriculum for continuous education courses as well as designing and administering licensing exams, or indirectly, by sponsoring the teaching faculties of medical schools. Their interests shape doctors’ thinking and treatments.

And that’s even before spending enormous amounts of money for all forms of advertising to promote their views on radio, television, and in printed publications.

In turn, doctors recommend fiber for constipation because that is what is written up in all medical references and textbooks, even though every single piece of independent research states emphatically:

— Fiber causes constipation and related colorectal disorders.

— Fiber doesn’t relieve constipation or improves motility.

— Fiber is squarely behind colorectal cancer

In summary, the difference between eating a diet high in "fiber" - that is, whole grain fiber, may actually prevent you from experiencing weight gain...because the bran in the whole grain may prevent your gut from digesting the carbohydrate in the grain quickly - but it will also lead to malabsorption of minerals and eventual nutritional deficiencies. Long term nutiritional deficiencies may actually lead to more health problems than simple weight problems and diabetes (not that those aren't bad enough.)

Better to just not eat grains....but on the occasion that you actually do? Don't eat the "whole grain" option thinking that it's actually better for you. It's not.

Refined or whole, grains have a whole lot of potential problems for your health if make them a regular part of your diet. It's not just phytates and carbohydrate load you have to worry about...glutens and lectins are no picnic either.

In conclusion, I think the following paragraph from gutsense.org bears reiterating, because applies to a whole host of other diet and health related issues:

Pharmaceutical companies in the United States control almost all aspects of medical education, either directly, by publishing references, textbooks, and curriculum for continuous education courses as well as designing and administering licensing exams, or indirectly, by sponsoring the teaching faculties of medical schools. Their interests shape doctors’ thinking and treatments.

And that’s even before spending enormous amounts of money for all forms of advertising to promote their views on radio, television, and in printed publications.

Indeed, this is precisely why I have an entire series of blog posts called "Red pill realities dispelling blue bill delusions." Because the blue pills are what the Pharmaceutical and Agricultural Corporations and their appointed stooges in the USDA and FDA have been handing out for quite some time now. Those blue pills are lucrative profits for their bottom lines, but sold at the expense of our health.

12 comments:

They say that 1 in 133 has celiacs and 1 in 7 is gluten intolerant. I suspect that both numbers are under the true mark. Quite simply, most people don't know that they are "sick" because it is how they have always felt, and how could you know that isn't normal when it has always been your normal?

If one is gluten intolerant or celiac, then nutritional deficiency is a given, despite your diet. You could eat the finest of foods and take supplements, but they are being pushed thru much too fast, and in the case of celiacs, the body is too damaged to absorb the nutrients anyways. And obviously a long standing nutritional deficiency is going to cause problems later in life that are just too numerous to mention.

I've heard the anti-grains argument before, and I just don't believe it. There are too many counter-examples of cultures that ate a very high-grain diet and consistently produced strong, tall, healthy individuals with great life expectancy (barring accidents). And it's all over the world too, including Europeans, Africans, Asians and Native Americans.

The Zulu ate a diet that was 90% carbohydrate and high in fiber. Excellent health.

Different European cultures ate different grains (oats, wheat and rye were the big three), and they did fine. Swiss villagers raised on a diet primarily of rye bread were consistently the tallest and strongest men in Europe, thus the Pope's traditional bodyguards of the Swiss Guard.

Several tribes of native Mexicans still consume a diet that's mostly beans and corn, and they're very healthy.

South Asians of course eat rice by the ton, and are healthy. Asians in cooler climates, like northern China and India, consume a great deal of wheat. Have you seen how tall and healthy the Sikhs are?

Someone who claims to prefer red pills with respect to nutrition really ought to read "Studies in Deficiency Disease", by Robert McCarrison. The common denominator is that people who consume whole, fresh, unprocessed grains (properly prepared via soaking and fermentation) do just fine. It's the processed grains of moderninity that cause the problem.

And is this really surprising? Would it surprise you to learn that fresh, whole milk is better for you than milk-derived protein supplements at GNC? I hope not. That ought to be common sense. Same for carbohydrates.

Do you have references for the carb-Zulus, I seriously doubt your 90% figure, it's almost technically impossible to consume that much carbs, there will always be a little protein even in high-starch products. The Kitavans who have a 70% percent carbs diet have so far the highest carb "score" I'm aware of, but they don't have grains at all, only tubers and their main fats are saturated (coconut).

As for the Asians argument with their rice, read up on Denise Mingers multiple analysis of the China Study to see for real that it's not as simple as it looks like (the quantities of rice consumed are not very high, rice looks protective, wheat strongly deleterious).

The China Study, which was supposedly the most reputable study about Chinese eating habits, specifically rice and all that goodness, was largely debunked.

As for asians in general, in the limited time I spent in Asia I get the notion their weight is primarily reflective of lack of food (or, high cost of food - see: singapore or japan). Not quite the same situation as the cheap overabundance of food found here in the US.

My main contention is that the USDA still recommends such pisspoor dietary guidelines despite vast improvements in knowledge regarding health and diet.

The Zulu were studied and reported on by T.L. Cleave in "The Saccharine Disease".

Guys, I'm aware of the shortcomings of The China Study. I am not promoting a vegetarian diet (far from it!). Nor I am saying that grains are necessary for good health. All I'm saying is that there are many, many examples of cultures that primarily eat grains, both historical and present. Unprocessed grains, properly prepared, are fine.

Have just overflown the book of T.C.Cleave (http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/Cleave/cleave_toc.html) and couldn't find any reference to the diet composition of the Zulus. There are a lot of numbers concerning the incidence on illnesses. The author makes the distinction between the traditional tribal whole diet comprized of maize and the modern one with more refined component (flour, sugar). In what chapter do these 90% come from? Maybe I'm to tired to find it.

Cusik, I'm South Asian (from India). We have an epidemic of diabetes in our country. Obesity is on the rise.

South Asia used to abundantly grow a wide variety (thousands) of different types of highly nutritionous grains like amaranth and many, many others.

The move to mono-crops like white rice and wheat is a recent thing and one that is not helping us healthwise.

It has to do with the advent of globalization, the liberalization of the Indian economy and the permission granted to American Multi National Corporations like MONSANTO to enter our country and wreak havoc on our land and people.

Monsanto has tried to PATENT an indigenous strain of Indian wheat. RiceTec of Texas has tried to patent our indigenous Basmati rice and yet another corporation has tried to patent our indigenous NEEM LEAF, used for thousands of years as a natural pesticide among other things.

Vandanan Shiva has fought all of this in court and won.

Unfortunately though our Indian government had laws against genetically modified crops, MONSANTO got in and introduced our country to soy and high fructose corn production and consumption.

Very soon Indians will become just as obese, diseased and depressed as Americans.

Vandanan Shiva is doing great work in fighting this though so I suggest viewing her videos on youtube.

Love this, totally concur, agree, believe, etc. Alas, grateful to have a place to refer my poor husband who is reluctant to believe my dietary suggestions, since I was the girl who put him on the feed lot in the first place. Turns out the steak and egg diet I found him with tastes better and is better. Thanks for the detailed info, very informative site, found you via Alte/TC.